The Hollywood Reporter quotes the Daisies, Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls creator as saying,

It's a tremendous honor to see 'Daisies' win in so many categories — and in the spirit of the show, win posthumously. Now can we please make the 'Pushing Daisies' movie?

While we're waiting for that, Daisies is set to return in a series published by DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint. Fuller, meanwhile, has left the world of genre TV behind after leaving Heroes for a second time this summer; he's currently developing Augusten Burroughs' novel Sellevision for NBC.

'Pushing Daisies' sees life after death [Hollywood Reporter]

From the time that Fuller's return to the NBC show was originally announced, it was always known that Fuller was going to be splitting his time at the network between developing his own shows and working on Heroes... which he was only originally confirmed to do through the end of the third season. So when he told Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello that his departure was less to do with creative friction -

I'm crafting two pilots right now and it's a lot of work... It was just too hard to [juggle] Heroes and my development; something had to give.

- it looks less like inner turmoil behind the scenes and simply a positive sign that Fuller will have some new, original work appearing in the near future (Our fingers are crossed, anyway). But does this mean that Heroes is doomed?

That remains to be seen; while Fuller has become the face of a potential Heroes turnaround since rejoining the show's staff, he's always spoken as if the show's change in focus back to being a character-based drama was less his doing than something that was already in the works before he came along again. It's worth remembering that, even without Fuller, the people making the show won't be the same as those who made the first three seasons - Producers Jeph Loeb, Jesse Alexander and Greg Beeman have all left the show, meaning that some change is inevitable. Whether it's good change or not - and, let's be honest, that whole "Nathan is really Sylar" thing could go either way - will be seen when the show returns in the fall... Or, at least, when we finally get to the episodes untouched by Fuller's hand, which may not happen for some time, depending how far in advance the writers were working.

AICN is reporting the rumor that Bryan Fuller has left Heroes, and isn't coming back.

Fuller was brought back on to the series, after the death of his beloved Pushing Daisies, as executive Producer last season in hopes of saving the "Fugitives" arc. And to be sure, he did create one entertaining episode right out of the gate, and our hopes for Heroes were raised a millimeter. But it was not to last and the show returned back to its questionable plots and weak characters.

But now he's gone, allegedly. And AICN is backing it up with another rumor that Fuller's parking space has been empty for some time. I'm curious as to what the rumors are surrounding his departure. I hope he shot out of there Jerry Maguire style.

If there ever was any doubt before, there certainly isn't now. If Fuller can't save it, who can? Heroes is doomed.

UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Fuller left to pursue other projects and not because of disagreements with Tim Kring.

"I'm crafting two pilots right now and it's a lot of work," admits Fuller, who has an overall deal with NBC. "It was just too hard to [juggle] Heroes and my development; something had to give."

Make of it what you will.

According to Fuller, "Redemption" will see the series returning to its original concept, and the show's characters trying to return to their lives, in light of what everyone has been through in the last three seasons:

[Every season so far] has been valid, and every one has been a slightly different style, which I think is interesting. I love how the show is continuing to grow. It is evolving, and I do think there is a lot of good stuff in 'Fugitives' and 'Redemption.' [In those volumes,] we saw the characters in situations we hadn't seen them in before and got to find out interesting things about those characters... So what I'm excited about with season four is getting everybody back to the basic principle of ordinary people in an extraordinary world and how these characters are relatable to us and what we would do if we were in their situations, and really grounding it in that conceit.

Part of making the characters relatable again will involve giving them back a life beyond their powers:

[F]or every plot conceit that we have for a character, we have even more conceits for what's going on in their personal lives that makes their plot story so much more complicated, because their emotional, personal story is so intrinsically tied with what's happening with them. I like the balance of the personal lives that we're telling this season.

Although Fuller stresses the point that he thinks that the show has never been outright bad, there is one telling line from the interview that suggests that he does know that the show has some work ahead of itself to regain past glories:

We love the cast. That's the thing. ... We just sort of have to find better uses for them.

Hopefully, that better use may include some fresher plots, as well... Heroes returns in September.

Why Bryan Fuller thinks Heroes is back, and what about Star Trek? [SciFi Wire]

Talking to SciFi Wire, Fuller explained,

The unfortunate thing about how we were breaking the [TV show's second] season was that we were taking a break from the Chuck and Ned central story line for three episodes to tell an Olive story, to tell an Emerson story, to tell a Lily/Vivian story [a]nd then with episode 14, open back up the whole thing with Chuck's father and Ned's father in a bigger way that was going to be our arc of the back nine of the season... but we ended up not getting a back nine. So, in an unfortunate way, those elements of Chuck's father and Ned's father and the pocket watches, that story is the story that's going to be continued in the comic book... We've arced [the series] out. The dangling threads from the series with Chuck's father and Ned's father and the pocket watches are all dealt with, not secondarily, but there's a whole new story that happens when there is a flash flood in the cemetery and all the bodies wash past Ned, and it's Ned versus a thousand corpses. That's the story of the comic book.

The Pushing Daisies comic, to be published by DC Comics through their Wildstorm imprint, is expected to appear before the end of the year; Pushing Daisies' final episodes begin tonight on ABC at 10pm.

Bryan Fuller: How Pushing Daisies ends-and how it was supposed to end [SciFi Wire]

The Writing Has Improved
No, really. It's very tempting to give most of the credit for this to the return of Bryan Fuller, now acting as "consulting producer" on the show - After all, the turn-around coincided with his first episode back, which also happened to be the best episode they'd had in years - but it's not as if he's the only person who's been delivering recently. Perhaps he just made everyone else step up their game, or maybe he's been reminding everyone what the show is really about, but the show is once again becoming fast-moving, popcorn-smart, funny entertainment again... and the characters are no longer seeming to shift personalities every couple of episodes depending on who the plot needs them to be in order to move forward or shock the viewers (Well, except Sylar, but that's intentional... I think). Also, they titled an episode "Turn And Face The Strange." That's got to be worth something, right?

No More Time Travel
The best thing about "Fugitives," the current arc? There's absolutely no time travel in it at all. For a show that had continually gone back to the same idea of "Character X Has Seen The Future And Must Prevent It" for its last three "volumes," this is nothing short of stunning... and, more than that, very welcome indeed. Instead, the show is slowly coming to terms with the idea that conflict can come less from predestination and more from the characters just doing what they do. Yes, they may still be ripping off the X-Men, but at least they're not still ripping off the one same storyline over and over again. Baby steps, people.

(Also something that seems to be finally being abandoned: The Daddy Issues. Now that we've dealt with Papa Parkman, Papa Petrelli and Papa Sylar, here's hoping that the show can finally move away from basing so much of the drama around characters' unhappy relationships with their fathers. If nothing else, they'll always have the Nathan/Claire/HRG triangle for cheap therapy.)

The Cast Is Shrinking. Ish.
Whether it's essentially sidelining characters (Mohinder keeps disappearing to "find himself" or "find the truth about his father" or something similar, and that's just fine with me), killing them off (Bye, Elle! Bye, Daphne! Bye, Tracy, even though I totally don't believe that you're dead!), or even just forgetting about them altogether (Are we ever going to see Monica again? What about Maya? Actually, no, I don't want to see her again), it's as if the writers had suddenly realized that the series was massively overpopulated, and mostly with characters that no-one cared about. Even though the show has only really started to improve in the last few episodes, a small cull has been underway since the start of this season, and it's something that I hope continues next year. One suggestion, though: Let's start killing off main characters who aren't serving any purpose anymore. Yes, Mohinder, I mean you. You too, Matt Parkman.

(Actually, another suggestion: Can you stop only getting rid of the female characters? It's kind of creepy, the weird gender bias when it comes to the characters who've been disappearing.)

Someone Has Started Thinking About The Powers
More signs of intelligence from the writers room: The Deus Ex Machina characters? Suddenly depowered in a move so welcome that I won't even complain too loudly about how awkwardly it was achieved. One of the show's constant problems has always been "The Flash Dilemma" - that is, the fact that if all of the characters were thinking, the stories would be over before they'd started because everyone involved was so powerful (So named because, if the Flash is really the fastest man alive, if he actually stopped to think, he could run around at superspeed and deal with all the bad guys before they'd had a chance to boast about how unstoppable they were), but now Peter Petrelli has to touch someone to gain their power, and even then, he can only mimic one power at a time, and Hiro can only stop time, not travel in it, nor teleport out of trouble with an overly-squinty blink. Only Sylar remains all-powerful, and that's as it should be; the bad guy should always be the one with all the power, otherwise he's no threat - and, even then, his power comes with a price (Not to mention a cameo from Ellen Greene in last week's episode). The result? Tension that you can believe in, without thinking that your favorite character is stupid.

Less Episodes Means Less Filler
Perhaps most importantly, NBC just announced that there'll be less Heroes next year; they plan on making somewhere between 18-20 episodes in total, compared with the 25 of this season. This is definitely a good thing, because it'll cut down on the random, go-nowhere shenanigans that the show has used to stretch out stories past their desired length so many times in the past (Case in point: Claire helping comic store geek escape the authorities). Hopefully, it'll also make the show's PTB think more about what needs to be said, as opposed to following their desires down creative dead-end alleys (Almost all of the recent "1961" episode) in order to fulfill the season's episode order.

Don't get me wrong; the show's nowhere near perfect, still; there are still moments that you want to throw things at your television and scream that everyone involved just may be retarded, and Nathan's hair continues to get more out of control with each and every episode. But Heroes has, rather remarkably, turned itself around from the carcrash it used to be to become something that, once again, has the potential to fulfill its own potential. It's also, thankfully, become more entertaining in doing so, and is worth your attention for an hour every week again. Tune into Monday's big season finale to see the fireworks and over the top plot resolutions to see if you can fall in love with the show again... and stick around for the final scene that'll show what we have in store for us when the show returns in the fall. You know you want to.

After an interminable twenty-five episode season that has faced widespread criticism for being rambling and aimless (and just generally being not terribly watchable), Heroes will only make eighteen to twenty episodes in its fourth season. NBC hopes this will allow the show to focus its storylines and, in the process, recapture its initial ratings success.

Adrian Pasdar, who plays Nathan Petrelli on the show, is already on record in support of NBC's decision:

"If things start shifting around, they can always add more at the end, but doing 25 episodes this year was nearly 11 months of work," Pasdar told TVGuide.com. "We love the work, but in order for the quality to be maintained, you can't just keep grinding it out.

"The pacing will be a little better - we were sometimes shooting three episodes at once, and there's no way that something doesn't slip through the cracks," Pasdar said. "It just gets crazy."

Coupled with the return of Bryan Fuller, whose five episodes back in charge of the show have produced some promising highs and some worrying lows, this news gives more cause for cautious optimism that Heroes might yet hoist itself out of the massive hole the show has spent the last two seasons digging. I'm not sure that's even possible at this point, but at least Heroes finally seems to be moving in the right direction.

[TV Guide]

Despite Fuller saying that he was talking to Marvel about publishing the comic book continuation of the cult series just recently, it turns out that it'll be DC Comics who'll handle the 12-issue series, as he explained to E! Online:

We got a 12-issue order for a comic book for DC Comics... I literally just finished outlining the 12-episode arc, which has an ending that propels us into another big story, so it's kind of blackmailing them into ordering more comics, but we'll see if that'll happen.

But what to expect from this first series? Fuller eagerly shared:

It's basically Chuck, Ned, Emerson and Olive versus 1,000 corpses, so it becomes a zombie movie, but the zombies are articulate and smart and can do things that no other zombies can do. The Pie-Maker versus 1,000 corpses.

Doesn't that just mean that he can touch them and unzombie-fy them? Or would they become zombies again as soon as he re-killed them? Oh, the rules of resurrection are so confusing... As before, Fuller hopes to have the new series ready by the end of the year, with a potential sneak peak available at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

Pushing Daisies Lives On (In the Comic Book World) [E! Online]

Talking to SciFi Wire, Fuller explained that he's already in discussions with Warner Bros. to get the publishing rights for the series, and Marvel Comics, to publish the series, which sounds... well, pretty damn good to this PD fanboy:

I am going to pull together the Pushing Daisies writing staff. It will be run like a writer's room, where I will write the first story, and we will arc out the other issues, which will comprise what we were going to do in the back nine. We'll also make it accessible for those who are not familiar with the TV series, as well as introducing villains we couldn't do on ABC. There is a villain from the Comic-Con preview comic about a guy who got his head cut off. Ned touched it to get some answers; the body came alive too and proceeded to grab his head and get away. We definitely want Head to come back as a big villain... In many respects, [the comic will] probably [be] season three. We're going to see a lot of exploration with Ned and his father, which we teased but were never able to make good on. We had George Hamilton save Ned and Chuck, and by having Emerson and Dwight Dixon clean up the whole mess we're going to understand who Dwight was to Chuck and Ned's dad. Dwight will be making a return, and we'll be seeing the adult Eugene Mulchandani and Danny that involves helium smuggling. There's a lot of fun stuff woven into the series that we were intending to pay off that we can now do in the comic-book series. The fans of the show will see a lot of stuff come to fruition, but new fans will have a greater appreciation, too.

In terms of artists, Fuller's thinking of a fellow Heroes alum, Tim Sale:

He's such a nice guy, and I have a really good relationship with him, so I'm hoping he'll be able to work with us. His art is so specific and has an interesting point of view, specifically with [Sale's Batman series with Jeph Loeb,] The Long Halloween. That was such a perfect melding of comic-book writer and artist, so I'd love to do something like that.

If all rights issues can be worked out, Fuller hopes that the series can begin as early as the fall.

Bryan Fuller teases Pushing Daisies' last eps-and comic series! [SciFi Wire]

Given our love of Fuller's Pushing Daisies, as well as his sterling work turning Heroes around these past few weeks, you'd think that the writer/producer taking on a new Trek series would be a no-brainer, but as he explained to Sci-Fi Wire, that's not necessarily the case:

It's sort of a pipe dream, like, "Wouldn't it be great if I could do that?" Those decisions are held by other people, so I've just said I'd love to do it. It's something that was very pivotal to my childhood and growing up. There's nothing official... I have a very specific take I'd like to do, but no official conversations have been had. I know CBS owns the rights to the television series. Everyone will probably want to see how the movie does, and I think it's gonna be huge. I'm just lighting a little Star Trek candle in the window and hope it comes to pass one day.

And what kind of Trek would he like to deliver? He's not saying much, but we're definitely interested in what he does have to say:

I'd love to do what Ron Moore did with Battlestar Galactica, which is redefine an existing franchise, knock down certain barriers of perception and make it accessible to a broader audience... I want Rosario Dawson. She would be an interesting lead that wouldn't have to be a captain. I just find her infectiously charming. The captains are always so tough in terms of who they would be. There's ethnicity, gender and all these factors to consider. Angela Bassett as a captain would rock my boat, though.

CBS may not be the most sci-fi-friendly network out there, but if the movie's as big a hit as everyone expects it to be, I can't believe that they wouldn't at least consider a new series, and I can't think of anyone who'd want to do it more than Fuller. Who do we have to beg to make this happen?

Bryan Fuller explains his ideas for a new Star Trek TV series [SciFi Wire]

The show's rumored return may not be official yet, but it's not a full-scale change of heart on behalf of the network... They're simply showing the last three episodes of the second season before it gets released on DVD in July. The episodes - reworked by Fuller before the show's cancellation to bring some sense of closure - are rumored to have a Saturday 10pm timeslot, starting May 30th. I have to admit to hoping against hope that they're an unexpected ratings smash, just to see how the network would react.

Potential schedule moves at ABC [Hollywood Reporter]

NBC's entertainment president Angela Bromstad confirmed that the network plans to bring the show back for a fourth season yesterday... but admitted that that season was likely to be 18-20 episodes, instead of the usual 23+ episodes required for a season. Bromstad also, according to the Hollywood Reporter, admitted that NBC has discussed setting a date for concluding Heroes, and constructing the remaining episodes with a view to creating an overarching storyline, a la Lost and Battlestar Galactica... all of which sounds like there may be hope for the (admittedly, currently-floundering) show after all. Now I'm even more intrigued to see what impact Bryan Fuller's return has on the show, when his episodes start airing in a few weeks.

NBC: 'Heroes' will continue next season [Hollywood Reporter]

Steve McPherson, ABC's Entertainment President, tackled the fate of Pushing Daisies (as well as another recently-disappeared ABC series, Dirty Sexy Money) during his appearance at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour this week, and his take on why the show was cancelled was that the way ratings are recorded is flawed:

[Audiences are] watching on their iPods, on their phones ... and to me we have to get as much of that viewership measured as possible because you want to make sure that we all know what we're reaching so that we can reach them better and understand what they're really compelled by and attracted to and what they are not... I really loved the shows. The producers delivered what they promised. For us it was a frustration that we couldn’t get a larger audience – or that Nielsen says we couldn’t get a larger audience.

As for the "missing" final episodes of Bryan Fuller's reincarnation whimsy, McPherson told the critics that ABC would like to make the episodes "available," before later clarifying that the network plans to make the episodes available online, as opposed to broadcasting them. Of course, you could simply just wait for the DVD.

McPherson plans robust fall, criticizes Nielsen [THR Live Feed]

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Swoosie Kurtz - who played Chuck's Aunt (no spoilers here) Lily Charles in Pushing Daisies - will be appearing in the NBC show's "Fugitives" arc in a role created especially for her by Fuller. Kurtz will be playing Millie, "an old society friend of Angela Petrelli's," according to the site's Michael Ausiello.

(This isn't Chuck's first aunt to make an appearance on Heroes; Ellen Greene, Daisies' Vivian Charles, was Sylar's foster mother Virginia Gray, in the show's first season.)

If we can't have another season or several of Pushing Daisies, then we'll happily watch as Fuller brings more and more of the cast to his new superhuman home. After all, there's no way that a little bit of Chi McBride wouldn't make Heroes much more watchable, and who doesn't want to see more of Anna Friel? What would be even better would be if Fuller just whole-heartedly brought Lee Pace over to the show as a neurotic piemaker who can bring the dead back to life, but that way bad fan-fic lies.

That said, if you happen to be reading, Mr. Fuller? You know it'd be awesome.

Exclusive: 'Heroes' stages 'Pushing Daisies' reunion! [EW.com]

Talking to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, show creator Bryan Fuller confirmed that, not only was tonight's scheduled episode pulled at the last minute, but there is no set date for transmission of the final episodes, tying up not only the cliffhanger of the last-shown episode (wherein Ned's missing father appeared, played by George Hamilton of all people), but also all of the show's dangling storylines. Fuller's quoted as "sighing" that the final episodes "are not scheduled to air right now, and that's all we know."

The fan in me is outraged about this, especially after Fuller reworked the end of the show's final episode in post-production to provide closure to all the plots, but the practical side of me realizes that, sadly, almost everything that's replaced Daisies in that timeslot has given ABC better ratings... and having three unseen episodes sure would help those DVD sales.

So, will ABC schedule the remaining episodes? Will Ned, Chuck and everyone else at the Pie Hole live again, even if it's only for a minute? It may take more than the touch of a magic finger to make that happen, sadly.

Ask Ausiello [EW.com]

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, Fuller - who worked on the show in its first season before creating ABC's ill-fated (yet wonderful) series - not only confirms that he's returning to the troubled NBC series for the third season's nineteenth episode, but he spoils some of what we should expect from February's "Fugitives" storyline, and why things are going to be better from now on.

On What The Show Did Wrong:

It became too dense and fell into certain sci-fi trappings. For instance, in the “Villains” arc, when you talk about formulas and catalysts, it takes the face off the drama. And I think the goal for everybody is to put a face back on the drama. You have to save something with a face; otherwise you don’t understand what you’re caring about. I thought the "Villains" arc started out very interestingly, and then became sort of muddy and dense and I couldn't get my hooks into the characters to understand their motivations. I also started to feel confused about what people's abilities were. One of the great things about the first season is that the metaphor for their abilities was very clear. Those metaphors seem to have gotten complicated in the past two seasons.

On Dealing With The Size Of The Cast:

People will die. And some will return... We're also going to tell fewer stories per episode. We're going to limit it to three or four with one big one that you can wrap the stories around. We're altering the structure of the show so that there's a very clear A story that takes up a larger percentage of the show so that that story gets traction.

On Why The Future Of The Series Is More Buffy, Less X-Files:

We need to get back into a character place, because that's where this story started: Very clean, superhero metaphors to everyday life. That's the path that we're taking. But it is a big ship so it's going to take a little while to turn it... It's not necessarily a reboot as much as it is going back to the basic spirit of the show and pulling people back in. I don't think the issues with the show have been about the serialization as much as about the density of the stories that have been serialized.

Maybe this is my Pushing Daisies love speaking, but... that all sounds kind of good. Is it worth being optimistic, or are all of Fuller's good intentions going to be swallowed up by the weekly soap opera melodrama as soon as the scripts start coming in?

Exclusive: Bryan Fuller's Rx for 'Heroes' [EW.com]

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fuller is in talks for a two-year deal with Universal Media Studios that will see him rejoin Heroes by the 20th episode of the show's troubled third season, although it's uncertain whether he'll stay with the series for a fourth season, or move to another Universal-produced series for the Fall 2009 schedule.

Whichever option he chooses, it's expected that he'll split his time between working on that series and developing projects of his own, meaning that fans of Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies have another critically-acclaimed, low-rated show to look forward to, for the season or so before it gets cancelled.

Bryan Fuller closes in on UMS deal [THR Live Feed]

Talking to E! Online's Kristen Dos Santos, Fuller admitted that low ratings had finally taken their toll on the show (This week's episode showed yet another drop in viewership, and the series' worst-ever rating in the all-important-to-advertisers 18-34 demographic):

[ABC president] Steve McPherson called me, and said 'We gave it the best shot we could'... To be honest, I'm really not feeling very boo hoo about it. I am so proud of the show. We put together 22 really good episodes, and there is a lot to be proud of. I'm sure I'll be working with a lot of these people again, and I would love to do so.

Of course, just because we've seen the last of Pushing Daisies the television show doesn't mean that we've seen the last of Pushing Daisies altogether. Fuller explained:

[W]e are talking to DC Comics about doing comic books that will wrap up our storylines, and I already have a pitch for a movie ready to go.

This wouldn't be Daisies first time as a comic - Before the show premiered, a preview comic was given away at 2007's San Diego Comic-Con; you can read it (and perhaps catch a glimpse of the show's future) here.

Production wrapped this week on the show's thirteenth episode, which will end with a cliffhanger. Fuller didn't comment on whether this meant that he was heading back to Heroes anytime soon.

Sources: Daisies, Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Canceled [E! Online]

If you ever got in a swordfight, most likely you'd be relying on memories of countless light-saber-battle rewatches to help you out. And Pushing Daisies's piemaking Adonis would have to agree with you there:

Everybody knows nerds love Japan and everything about it. So when she casually jumped into a conversation with Japanese businessmen, female lead Chuck proved herself to be the sexiest nerd on television:

Have you ever pretended to be in a film noir while also shooting out SAT words? Well, if you haven't, you'd better do so and up your nerd cred:

When eHarmony doesn't pan out, we nerds must turn back to what has worked for us all our lives — fictional reality. A real devotee will go beyond a simple cardboard cutout of Princess Leia, and get himself a RealDoll:

Never let it be said that nerds don't protect our own. Piemaker Ned might spend his evenings raising the dead and asking them questions, but he does so with the utmost respect. He objects to the slander perpetuated by movies like Night of the Living Dead:

There is, unfortunately, a dark side to being a nerd. Ned's crippling social awkwardness makes for some truly tragic instances of word vomit:

And that's just what I could find on YouTube. Pushing Daisies is a veritable nerd pride parade, which is fitting, considering that its creator geeks out to the Original Series of Star Trek. I just hope the parade continues.

Chuck image courtesy Pushing-Daisies.com.

While Daisies has underperformed for almost the entirety of its second season, things may be about to turn around for the unofficial Best Network Show That You're Not Watching; ratings were up by a million for the last episode, and Fuller himself remains committed to the show:

I love Heroes. I had a wonderful time there during the first season. I love the writers. I love the cast. I love the crew. But I want Daisies to stay on the air. There are so many great stories in the back 9 that deepen the world and enrichen the characters. Is enrichen a word?

(According to the internet, no, it's not.)

Entertainment Weekly is currently reporting that no final decision has been made by ABC on whether the go-ahead will be given for those back nine episodes, but also points out that production on the final episode before those nine will wrap this week, and looks at the earlier-than-expected return of Lost in January as a bad sign for the show's longevity. Others, however, wonder if Lost's return will raise Daisies' profile, as the latter may end up as a lead-in to the former, given Lost's return to a Wednesday timeslot, and with the news that Life on Mars is being moved to a Wednesday 10pm slot following Lost in January, it's possible that the network may be aiming for an all SF/fantasy evening to bolster audiences for all three shows.

Although the potential Heroes offer may force an earlier commitment (or otherwise), ABC has until mid-January to make a final decision about Pushing Daisies.